Tanuki Tales
2012-07-18, 12:56 PM
Threads concerning bad DMing or DM horror stories or the proper behaviors and credos for DMing or a DM venting or asking about how a session went concerning their players (and it ends up with the thread more or less turning against them and blaming them) are a dime a dozen on these forums. You see, at the very least, one of them every day.
And we geeky folks who do tend to sit in the DM chair do inevitably read these threads out of curiosity and continue to read them either because they can be learning experiences, entertaining diversions to kill some time, amusing nostalgia measuring sticks to see how we've evolved and grew as DMs as the years have gone by or what ever reason we do end up reading them.
But I have to admit that every time I read these threads, see the responses that come into them, the ideology of how the DM should treat the players (and very rarely in my personal experience the other way around), the dissection of where the DM is being "bad wrong" and all, it makes me want to DM games less and less.
I mean, as a far as I'm aware, I've never really fallen into any of the pitfalls of "Bad DMing" before; I don't really railroad at all, I've never had any glory hogging DMPCs, I've never abused my power to passive aggressively work out IRL frustrations on my players, I've never defenestrated my players when they come up with creative, crazy ideas, I've never gone into a "killer DM" mindset (except once but they asked me to run that way to end a campaign), I've never stonewalled them or dismissed them out of hand for finding a way to basically one-shot an encounter and never have any of the games I've run ever been anything but fun for them.
But after spending years with the online community here, reading those threads as I have, I can't help but second guess myself and question my credibility as a DM now. Am I doing it wrong? Am I really making a toxic environment for my games? Is it wrong of me to try and build a game where I'm enjoying myself as much as my players and I'm not sacrificing my fun for their fun or vice versa? Are they only sticking with me and saying the games were "fun" to my face because, as one playgrounder put it, DMs are in an extremely limited supply and many gamers would rather have a crappy game and DM then no game and DM at all?
I don't read those threads as much as I used to, but even if I stopped completely and never opened another one ever again, the damage is pretty much done and the seed of doubt sown.
Maybe I'm just reading into more than is there, but I just feel that the community seems to be very critical and against DMs and quite a deal more lenient on players.
Does anyone else see what I'm saying and where I'm coming from or is this just irrational paranoia and insecurities playing Gary Busey in my head?
And we geeky folks who do tend to sit in the DM chair do inevitably read these threads out of curiosity and continue to read them either because they can be learning experiences, entertaining diversions to kill some time, amusing nostalgia measuring sticks to see how we've evolved and grew as DMs as the years have gone by or what ever reason we do end up reading them.
But I have to admit that every time I read these threads, see the responses that come into them, the ideology of how the DM should treat the players (and very rarely in my personal experience the other way around), the dissection of where the DM is being "bad wrong" and all, it makes me want to DM games less and less.
I mean, as a far as I'm aware, I've never really fallen into any of the pitfalls of "Bad DMing" before; I don't really railroad at all, I've never had any glory hogging DMPCs, I've never abused my power to passive aggressively work out IRL frustrations on my players, I've never defenestrated my players when they come up with creative, crazy ideas, I've never gone into a "killer DM" mindset (except once but they asked me to run that way to end a campaign), I've never stonewalled them or dismissed them out of hand for finding a way to basically one-shot an encounter and never have any of the games I've run ever been anything but fun for them.
But after spending years with the online community here, reading those threads as I have, I can't help but second guess myself and question my credibility as a DM now. Am I doing it wrong? Am I really making a toxic environment for my games? Is it wrong of me to try and build a game where I'm enjoying myself as much as my players and I'm not sacrificing my fun for their fun or vice versa? Are they only sticking with me and saying the games were "fun" to my face because, as one playgrounder put it, DMs are in an extremely limited supply and many gamers would rather have a crappy game and DM then no game and DM at all?
I don't read those threads as much as I used to, but even if I stopped completely and never opened another one ever again, the damage is pretty much done and the seed of doubt sown.
Maybe I'm just reading into more than is there, but I just feel that the community seems to be very critical and against DMs and quite a deal more lenient on players.
Does anyone else see what I'm saying and where I'm coming from or is this just irrational paranoia and insecurities playing Gary Busey in my head?